Posted on 01/30/2008 2:10:37 PM PST by decimon
New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today. What is the genetic mutation
“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”. The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour – a condition known as albinism. Limited genetic variation
Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be explained by the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” says Professor Eiberg. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.
Professor Eiberg and his team examined mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. His findings are the latest in a decade of genetic research, which began in 1996, when Professor Eiberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour. Nature shuffles our genes
The mutation of brown eyes to blue represents neither a positive nor a negative mutation. It is one of several mutations such as hair colour, baldness, freckles and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human’s chance of survival. As Professor Eiberg says, “it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so.”
Hubby has brown eyes, and I have green eyes. We have three blue-eyed children. (out of nine) Do they have different ancestors than we do??????????
No, I'm straight.
Odds are 50% of your kids will have blue, 50% brown (or hazel).
The odds are half of your kids will have brown eyes, since your wife carries one Brown and one Blue, and you have two blues. The brown will express if present.
I saw a billboard for Lucy’s bones on exhibit at a local museum.
She’s my ancestor (although I haven’t had a paternity test yet).
I want them back. Mine mine mine. Or I’ll settle for half the receipts.
I have bright blue eyes as do all the members of my immediate family. My yDNA is R1b and my mtDNA is ‘V.’
That would make for a new Book of Revelations.
You may carry a recessive gene for blue eyes. Your wife presumably does.
If you both have the gene, you have the one in four chance of a blue-eyed kid.
If she carries the gene and you don’t, your kids will all have brown eyes.
But don’t quote me, not exactly my area of expertise.
Throw in a picture of Wayne Gretzky and you may have something there.
And all because of "Olaf the Hound" some thousands of years ago.
Yum.
LOL!
Asuming the “world” described in that account is not “merely” mesopotamia (the entire known world at the time and the cradle of civilization where a devestating Texas-size flood occurred during the correct timeframe), you would be correct.
(The term “world” is used kind of loosely in the O.T. — there are times when various kings during the Egyptian periods are “kings of the whole world, that sort of thing.)
An unknowable debate, as it detracts from the point of the story.
This is not good news.
Goebbels wrote about his first meeting with Hitler: "I was fascinated by Hitlers blue eyes". Traudl Junge, his last secretary (see the movie: "Der Untergang") often told in interviews, that people were amazed about Hitlers blue eyes.
The blue-eyed mutation was common in the northeastern provinces of Atlantis. When the sea level rose in 8992 BC (only dorks think Atlantis sank), the blue-eyed residents of NE Atlantis naturally sailed on the prevailing winds to Europe.
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